"And if Oliver needs you more than that plan allows?"
Rachel's mouth twisted. "Then we renegotiate like adults instead of like people terrified of the word affair."
Laura looked at her profile in the deck light. "I did think it. When I saw you on the stairs. For a full minute I thought my husband had built a second family while I was gone."
"I know," Rachel said. "My face is the kind of face that makes that story easy. I've been that story before, falsely, in other people's marriages. It never gets less disgusting." She paused. "For what it's worth, Daniel talks about you constantly. It was annoying. Laura would love this recipe. Laura always puts the thermostat here. Laura's mother used to— He was keeping you present so hard it sometimes felt like you were in the room judging us."
"I wish I had been," Laura said. "Judging. Present. Something."
Rachel nodded. "Me too. For different reasons."
Suspicion, Dr. Patel told them, was not always a detective's instinct. Sometimes it was grief wearing a costume.
"You lost months," she told Laura. "Your nervous system is hunting for the thief. Rachel is visible. Death is not. So the mind prosecutes the visible."